Israel protests Iran’s appointment to U.N. WMD committee

JERUSALEM — Israel protested the appointment of Iran to a United Nations General Assembly committee charged with regulating the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction.

Iran was appointed last week as special rapporteur of the U.N. General Assembly’s Committee on Disarmament and International Security. In that position, the Iranian representative to the committee will keep the General Assembly up to date on the committee’s actions during the 68th session, which ends in September.

“It is inconceivable that a state under Security Council sanctions for suspected WMD (weapons of mass destruction) proliferation activities would be allowed to hold this position,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, wrote Tuesday in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “Permitting Iran to serve on the UN’s leading disarmament committee is like appointing a drug lord CEO of a pharmaceutical company. How is it possible to entrust the reporting on disarmament to a country that itself is likely to be the subject of the report?”

Prosor added that giving Iran the position “erodes the U.N.’s legitimacy and its ability to promote arms control and disarmament, as well as preserve global peace and security.

Iran bid for the position in July and actively campaigned for the post.